Minnesota Wild goaltender Josh Harding earned $750,000 in 2011-12 as the backup to Niklas Backstrom. He’s an unrestricted free agent this summer, and the Oilers should give serious thought to bringing him aboard in time for next season.

The Oilers and Harding are a good fit for each other in a few ways. Let’s start with why the Oilers could use Harding.

At 27 years of age, Harding fits with the Oilers core group of players, and if all goes well could spend the next decade as an NHL goaltender. He’s a good goalie now; his save percentage for the woeful Minnesota Wild this season was a sparkling 0.917, and over 117 NHL games he’s posted a career 0.916 SV%.

Given his youth and proven level of NHL ability, Harding would give the Oilers a second strong option in net. This is desirable for a few different reasons. First, the competition for playing time would undoubtedly help push both Harding and Dubnyk. Second, redundancy in goal is always a good thing – in the event one guy gets hurt or struggles, there’s always a second capable guy around to help shoulder the load.

One of the underrated strengths of the glory years Oilers was their depth in net; early on the team had Andy Moog and Grant Fuhr splitting time in net; later on they had Fuhr and Bill Ranford. In all of Fuhr’s years with the Oilers, only once did he play more than 60 games – in 1987-88, when Moog left to play for the Canadian National Team until the Oilers sent him to Boston for Ranford and Geoff Courtnall.

Obviously, it’s far too early to compare a Dubnyk/Harding tandem to Fuhr/Moog, but there’s no denying the value of having a backup who can play regularly.

Still, if Harding has an attractive combination of talent and (relative) youth, why would he be interested in playing in Edmonton?

Part of the reason is the NHL goalie market: the simple fact is that there are more competent goalies available than there are job openings, particularly when the trade market is taken into account.

Beyond that, Harding’s injury history is a big risk for a team looking at him as a starter. A knee injury cost Harding the entire 2010-11 season. He’s missed time with both hip injuries and head injuries, and given that a team might hesitate when penciling him in for 60+ starts.

Edmonton is the perfect middle ground. Harding’s career save percentage is better than that of Devan Dubnyk, and he’d stand a decent shot at taking the starting gig away if he signed with the Oilers, and even if he didn’t he’d still undoubtedly play regularly. Because the Oilers already have Dubnyk, they’d be more willing to gamble on Harding’s health than a team with an untrusted backup would. The Oilers have also done a good job – with Martin Gerber and then Yann Danis – of having a third-string goalie who can play the last few years, so it’s reasonable to expect they’d be prepared in case of injury.

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including the Edmonton Journal, Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

If you want Khabi off the team but you don't want the cap penalty, then why not just send him down to the minors? Based on the Souray situation, this team has no problem paying a guy a lot of money to play in the minors for one year. It might even force NK into retirement.

But I'm not saying to do it right away. Give NK a legitimate shot at training camp, like every other player gets, and have him compete for an NHL job. If he's comes up third or fourth on the depth chart, then down he goes. Sending him down would be a wake-up call to the other vets as well.

If you want Khabi off the team but you don't want the cap penalty, then why not just send him down to the minors? Based on the Souray situation, this team has no problem paying a guy a lot of money to play in the minors for one year. It might even force NK into retirement.

But I'm not saying to do it right away. Give NK a legitimate shot at training camp, like every other player gets, and have him compete for an NHL job. If he's comes up third or fourth on the depth chart, then down he goes. Sending him down would be a wake-up call to the other vets as well.

Picking your team based on training camp leaves an overmatched Lander On your team.

If you want Khabi off the team but you don't want the cap penalty, then why not just send him down to the minors? Based on the Souray situation, this team has no problem paying a guy a lot of money to play in the minors for one year. It might even force NK into retirement.

But I'm not saying to do it right away. Give NK a legitimate shot at training camp, like every other player gets, and have him compete for an NHL job. If he's comes up third or fourth on the depth chart, then down he goes. Sending him down would be a wake-up call to the other vets as well.

I was thinking the same thing, but as someone else mentioned,I'm pretty sure that because he was over 35 when he signed the cap hit doesn't come off even if sent to the minors.

The oil honoring the remaining year on khabbi's deal and starting him 30 games does only one thing next year. It gives the oil maybe 12 points in those games as opposed to maybe 30 points with an actual NHL tender. The difference between 12th and 8th place.

Is khabbi tradeable at the deadline next year? You can't overestimate the stupidity of some decisions of desperate GMs, but if khabbi was a car(a Lada?) you would need to leave the keys and a $100 bill on the dash to attract a thief.

Is Harding the solution? Maybe not but khabbi is DEFINITELY not the solution.